regular columnist “grant charles

The power in numbers

A colleague and I have been conducting a training
program over the past few months to a group of residential supervisors
in Nova Scotia. We meet a couple of days a month in different locations
around the province. One of the main purposes of the training is to
establish a common framework of supervision in the residential programs.
It's been an interesting journey bringing together a group of people
with diverse experiences and skills in an attempt to find common ground.
Like so much of our work in our field the process of coming together is
at least as important as is the achieving of the stated goal of the
training.

As I’m writing this column I’m remembering our first
days together as a group. There had been the typical coming together
interactions that occur when a group of people come together for the
first time. You know how it goes. People check each other out trying to
figure out where they fit in the group. People were trying to figure out
how much they should trust us as trainers and each other as peers.
Nothing unexpected, just the dance we do when we first come together as
a group.

What did surprise me, however, was how few people in
the room had previously met each other. I guess I had expected that
because the province does not cover a huge geographic area (at least in
Canadian terms) that most of the residential supervisors would have
known each other. Many had talked to each other on the telephone but it
surprised me how few people had met in person. As a result one of the
biggest benefits that people say they have gotten from the training has
been the opportunity to get together to discuss common concerns and
interests.

I’ve thought a lot about the pleasure people get
from meeting each other. Apart from the pleasure one gets from meeting
new people it seemed to me that in this case a major need was being met
for many of the supervisors. It seemed to me that for the first time
many were connecting with their colleagues as peers and possible sources
of support. However, it reminded me how many of us as supervisors or
managers experience a sense of isolation in our work.

This isolation comes in many shapes. The job itself
can, of course, be isolating. In smaller programs a supervisor may be
the only person in the position. By virtue of this they may not have any
peers in the organization. However, even in large organizations
supervisors may be isolated. Here the isolation may be more purposeful.
Some supervisors may not reach out to their peers because they see them
as “competitors”. Some of us stay isolated because we have a need to
pretend we don’t need the support of other people. I know of other
situations where supervisors are kept isolated from each other by their
bosses. This is more like a divide and conquer situation. I guess some
bosses feel they can keep better control of their “subordinates” if they
can keep them from coming together in a supportive way. Whatever the
reason or the cause the end result of all of this is a sense of
isolation on the part of many supervisors.

What strikes me as sad is this whole thing is how,
in my experience, lots of supervisors let themselves stay isolated.
Whether the isolation is caused by the size of the program or a sense of
competition or the actions of a boss it seems to me that the only way it
can continue is if one lets it continue. Isolation can only continue if
one doesn’t reach out and end it. It also says something about the
places where we work. In having a structure that isolates supervisors we
once again are recreating the types of environments we are trying to
prevent the kids in our care from experiencing. We try to stop them from
being isolated yet we set up structures and hierarchies that promote
isolation for ourselves. There’s an irony here that says a lot about our
field.

However, there are people who are trying to reach
out and support each other. These people should be praised for this
effort. So here’s to a group of people I respect for reaching out and
taking risks. The beneficiaries will not just be themselves but also the
young people in their care. Here’s to the residential supervisors of
Nova Scotia.

Grant

THE INTERNATIONAL CHILD AND YOUTH CARE NETWORK (CYC-Net)Registered
Non-Profit and Public Benefit Organisation in the Republic of South Africa
(031-323-NPO, PBO 930015296)